Doctors Say 9 Newborns Of Malian Mum Will Be In Incubators For 2 to 3 Months

Halima Cisse, 25, was due to give birth to seven children, but ultrasounds in Morocco and Mali missed the two siblings. The nonuplets, who were born through a cesarean section, were five girls and four boys, Reuters reported. Cisse's pregnancy has intrigued the West African country and caught the attention of its politicians. When doctors decided she wanted specialized care, she was flown to Morocco.

Doctors said the babies would continue to spend the next two to three months in incubators at the Moroccan hospital after being birthed prematurely at 30 weeks into the Malian woman’s pregnancy.

In a tweet, Mali's health minister, Fanta Siby, said, "The newborns (five girls and four boys) and the mother are all doing well." Nonuplets are a rare case of delivery, and medical complications of multiple births of this kind often result in the mortality of some of the infants. The rarity has concerned the doctors about the survival of the babies, The Guardian reported.

Adjudant Kader Arby, Cisse's husband told BBC Afrique that he had been constantly contacting his wife from Mali, where he is with their older daughter. “God gave us these children,” he said. “He is the one to decide what will happen to them. I’m not worried about that. When the almighty does something, he knows why.”

Doctors said the babies would continue to spend the next two to three months in incubators at the Moroccan hospital after being birthed prematurely at 30 weeks into the Malian woman’s pregnancy.

Professor Youssef Alaoui, the medical director of the Ain Borja clinic in Casablanca, where the nonuplets were born said it was a rare occurrence.

Her premature infants, weighing between 15 to 35 ounces, will be cared for in incubators for "two to three months," according to Alaoui. For the births of the five baby girls and four baby boys, a medical team of 10 doctors and 25 paramedics was at work.

Cisse's nonuplets are just the third known instance of the incredibly unusual occurrence, with prior mothers in Australia and Malaysia losing their babies shortly after birth.